KGB Update and Discussion

[DeepO]

Forget about Grog returning, if we don't pop those huts with Vox so close, we'll lose them. We've got to take some risk...

But something else: what about skirmisher-rushing Vox? It surely would feel good, and Aginor already showed their starting pos is excellent as well. They would probably make a good second, or third city...

DeepO

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by vulture
Can we not emergency-whip the warrior once we hit size 2?

Not an option without Bronze Working.

[DeepO]

Aginor, one explanation for Vox' behaviour is that they also noticed our trade connection, and had a similar insight to their closeness to us. that way, they would maximize shields over food to get their warrior out asap (they are unprotected right now!).

they had 4 turns at 1 hpt, 1 turn at 3 hpt, right? Next turn, we can expect another 3 hammers, totalling 10... 2 more turns to their 1st warrior. Then, they still have to move that to us, which is a minimum of 5 turns, so the earliest we can be attacked would be in 7 turns (on turn 17).

If the above deduction is correct (check the numbers please, I try to follow but it's easy to overlook some discussions in here), that would menan EotS is safe: by the time they can reach us, our 2nd warroir is finished anyway.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by DeepO
they had 4 turns at 1 hpt, 1 turn at 3 hpt, right? Next turn, we can expect another 3 hammers, totalling 10... 2 more turns to their 1st warrior. Then, they still have to move that to us, which is a minimum of 5 turns, so the earliest we can be attacked would be in 7 turns (on turn 17).

Hmm. That can't be right, Vox should play their turn 10 now.

Do we know the hammer count on Vox' warrior, and when to expect #2?

DeepO

[Hot Mustard]

You're assuming Vox would not attack with their starting Scout upon seeing an empty capital.

[Dominae]

Scouts can only defend...

[Hot Mustard]

Sorry, shouldn't have said attack, I meant only walking into an undefended city - but not having ever tried it, maybe that's the same as attacking?

[vmxa1]

Are we men are are mice, oh we are Devo. Yake down the hut before they get it. NOt a huge risk as if they have figure it out, they may also be worried about an attack and stay close to home.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by DeepO
Aginor, one explanation for Vox' behaviour is that they also noticed our trade connection, and had a similar insight to their closeness to us. that way, they would maximize shields over food to get their warrior out asap (they are unprotected right now!).

I agree that this was probably a secondary consideration for choosing to work the plains Gold/Silver. Based on when they finished the tech at 10/turn it's pretty clear that Vox researched Myst, and they should have been able to figure out that Sara apparently hit Myst when they decided to work that tile as well.

I don't anticipate Vox going on the offensive; in fact, I think that they are likely to get their religion, consolidate their holdings, and wait for passive spread or their Scout to find us. The most sensible play is to go Meditation -> Archery and kill any effort we might make at a Skirmisher rush. They've got the hammers to do it, and every turn that passes after they mine that tile gives them a massive tech lead on us. Time is on their side.

While I'd love to rush them, I think we'd need BW to take their capital. By the time we can get a decent rush organized, we'd be looking at a 40% defense bonus to the Archers. I think we'd need City Raider promotions on Axemen to get the job done, and that's pretty resource intensive.

There may be something to be said for sending out a couple of Skirmishers to pillage, however. A Skirmisher fortified on their Gold/Silver would be quite difficult to dislodge, and it would negate their terrain advantages. We'd have to play a pretty militaristic game early on, though, and if there's a third party on this continent that might come back to haunt us.

[Arrian]

Ok, clearly no need to recall Grog to EotS. Journey onward!

-Arrian

[Mudhut]

Originally posted by Aginor

There may be something to be said for sending out a couple of Skirmishers to pillage, however. A Skirmisher fortified on their Gold/Silver would be quite difficult to dislodge, and it would negate their terrain advantages. We'd have to play a pretty militaristic game early on, though, and if there's a third party on this continent that might come back to haunt us.

I really like this idea. Once he's fortified on the hill, they simply can't dislodge our skirmisher until they get BW -> which is a long way away for them (and for us!).

Getting a skirmisher onto their gold hill is the best way to negate their early research advantage. Once we get our cottages up, we will pull away from them techwise and then they can be easily added to our empire

[Mudhut]

Originally posted by DeepO

Hmm. That can't be right, Vox should play their turn 10 now.

Do we know the hammer count on Vox' warrior, and when to expect #2?

DeepO

Hmmm. I'm even more confused now.

I work out the Vox hammer count at starting at 7 turns x 1 hammer per turn [4000,3960,3920,3880,3840,3800,3760]. Then they grow - because of the governor settings, they actually only gained a 1/1/1 tile, which gives them 1 turn x 2 hammers [3720]. Then they manually move this to the plains gold hill at 0/2/3 which gives them 1 turn x 3 hammers [3680].

All of which means they should have completed 12/15 hammers on their warrior, and will get their warrior next turn [3640]. Is that right? It's dependent on when hammers are actually produced in the turn cycle (with the governor setting it to the "wrong" tile) and I'm not crystal clear on that.

[notyoueither]

We can finish the warrior in 2 turns (or one if we really want to) after this turn. All we have to do is switch to hammer tiles.

Move Grog according to plan.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Mudhut
All of which means they should have completed 12/15 hammers on their warrior, and will get their warrior next turn [3640]. Is that right? It's dependent on when hammers are actually produced in the turn cycle (with the governor setting it to the "wrong" tile) and I'm not crystal clear on that.

The alternate time frames problem is enough to make your head explode. It's part (but not all) of why I make so many mistakes trying to deduce my way through this stuff.

Here's the key part to remember - the FIRST turn of border expansion/growth production DOES NOT COUNT. In other words - when the governor places that tile on the turn of growth, the team does NOT get that production. Rather, they get the antecedent production at the time that they clicked the 'end turn' button, BEFORE the border expansion/pop growth.

To give you an example:

Vox had 8 turns of 5/1/10 in order to grow. Remainder: 2 food. (22 to grow, 3x8 = 24). Total produced: 8 hammers.

There is NO turn at which Vox actually produces 6/2/11. This is simply what WE see when the demographics comes up and the governor places. Vox changes this before actually producing anything.

Vox then conducts 2 turns at 3 hammer production. 2x3 = 6. Total hammers = 14.

I anticipate Vox's first Warrior coming online next turn, with a 2 hammer remainder.

Edit: $&%*, Vox changed production again...going to have to grind on the new production totals again and try to figure out what in the world is going on now.

[vulture]

Now that poly is working again...

Important question: are we allowed to use old saves (turn 10
specifically) to replay exactly the same moves (to avoid seeing new
info), but play around with changeable things like assigning workers to
different tiles to see how the demographics change?

We have good potiential on turn 11 to try and judge what Vox changed
their tile to, and what tile AC or Sara got when they grew, but I don't
think we can do it without playing with our labourers. (And I can't do
it due to not even having updated to the latest patch yet... )

BTW I don't know if anyone kept up to date with the water situation (if
it matters), but we know the following:

There are 16 water tiles in our opponents city radii.

Horde have 1 water tile next to their city, but are otherwise
landlocked.

One of {AC, Sara} have 3 waters tiles in their first ring and 5 in the
second ring - clearly coastal. The other has X (0 <= X <= 3) in the
first ring and 3 in the second ring.

One of {Mercs, Vox, Banana} have 1 water in their first ring, the others
have 0. Between them they have 3-X in their second rings.

So with AC & Sara - one of them is clearly coastal. The other is very
likely to be (alternative is settling 1 tile away from the coast - after
moving for 1 turn before settling, which looks deeply foolish, or having
3 lake tiles in their 2nd ring, which is possible but unlikely). So it
is unlikely that X = 0.

So most likely, AC and Sara are both coastal.

At most one of {Mercs, Vox, Banana} is coastal, and they'd have to have
a narrow bay (1 tile next to city, 1 or 2 in next ring). More likely we
just have a few lake tiles scattered between the 3 of them, and they are
all landlocked.